Good morning. Wendy Cox in Vancouver.
Not long before the polls closed in British Columbia and while our B.C. newsroom was preoccupied with election results, we were alerted to the resignation of the president of the B.C. Nurses’ Union.
Few newsrooms these days have labour reporters who stay on top of the machinations of the organizations that continue to have important power and influence over the working lives of vast sectors of the public and private sectors. The resignation of almost any other union leader would not be a major event.
But in the middle of a pandemic that has pushed health care workers to burnout and has exacerbated a pre-existing nursing shortage, the departure of Christine Sorenson from the helm of the B.C. Nurses’ Union is notable.
So is the terse announcement making public the departure of someone who served with the union’s administration since 2010.
“The BC Nurses’ Union thanks Christine Sorensen for her years of dedication and service to the BCNU. Christine Sorensen has resigned as President of the BCNU for personal reasons and to pursue other opportunities,” read the full text posted to the union’s website.
The resignation comes a week after the union became embroiled in an internal dispute over its opposition to mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations in the health care sector.
The union, with 48,000 members, said in a statement on Sept. 13 that the mandatory vaccine order, which comes into effect in late October, could lead to nurses being forced to leave their jobs. Ms. Sorensen was not quoted in the statement and did not respond to media requests.
The Canadian Nurses Association has joined the Canadian Medical Association in calling for mandatory vaccinations for health care workers. The BCNU is not a member of the national group.
The issue has become a divisive one within the BC Nurses’ Union. As Justine Hunter and Xiao Xu write today, comments on this announcement on the union’s public Facebook page highlighted the divisions. The people posting could not be reached for comment.
“Our patients deserve to be looked after by vaccinated health care professionals. The damage is done thx to BCNU, my social media is on fire with my friends/colleagues angry, upset, ashamed,” nurse Joanna MacKenzie wrote in the public comments responding to the union’s post.
“As nurses, I think we have an ethical responsibility to uphold the right of patients and individuals to make choices based on what’s best for them,” commented Dorothy Creech.
Two days after the BCNU issued its statement opposing B.C.’s mandate, the union issued a “clarification” in response to a backlash from its own membership.
The union acknowledged that most of its membership is already vaccinated, but warned that the policy could create “desperate staffing challenges in worksites where staffing is already stretched extremely thin.” It warned that thousands of nurses could be sidelined by the policy.
Health Minister Adrian Dix and Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry were asked at a briefing Tuesday what the vaccination rate is among nurses. Neither would respond directly.
“I can tell you that, from my experience, the rates in most acute-care facilities are in the high 90s. We know from Doctors of BC that the rates of immunization in doctors, again, is in the high 90s. We know that it’s very high in nursing as well,” Dr. Henry said.
Union officials did not respond to inquiries about the circumstances of Ms. Sorenson’s departure.
Ms. Sorensen served as the union’s president beginning in 2018, taking over after Gayle Duteil was forced out in a messy fight that, after two rounds of costly arbitration and a court battle, ended with its governing council declaring her ineligible to remain in office.
Ms. Duteil is now one of the outspoken advocates for mandatory vaccinations. “Nurses deserve a safe workplace for themselves, their families and their patients,” she wrote in a Sept. 16 posting on Twitter.